15 thoughts on “BOFFO AT THE BOX OFFICE”

Funniest moment in early television watching – glancing at the screen and mistaking President Eisenhower for my great-uncle Oscar. Very good general and a very good private, two different wars though. Oscar fought in WWI.

Maine on Friday became the latest state to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day when Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill making the change official. Other states that have made the change include neighboring Vermont, Alaska and South Dakota

“Our history is by no means perfect. But, for too long, it has been written and presented in a way that fails to acknowledge our shortcomings,” Mills said in a statement.

The October holiday is often criticized for celebrating the atrocities brought upon by colonization.

“There is power in a name and in who we choose to honor,” Mills said. “Today, we take another step in healing the divisions of the past, in fostering inclusiveness, in telling a fuller, deeper history, and in bringing the State and Maine’s tribal communities together to build a future shaped by mutual trust and respect.”

With this vow to reporters on Wednesday, President Trump laid bare his approach to the concept of congressional oversight. As the Democratic-controlled House ramps up its investigations of his administration, Mr. Trump is throwing up a stone wall.

Among the congressional requests denied in recent days: Mr. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, has declined an invitation to discuss immigration policy; the Justice Department has rebuffed a subpoena for John Gore, a deputy attorney general, to answer questions about the 2020 census; and the White House has instructed a former staffer, Carl Kline, not to provide information about how security clearances are granted. Mr. Trump called the subpoena for Donald McGahn, the former White House counsel, “ridiculous.” And while the Internal Revenue Service is still officially considering the request by the House Ways and Means Committee for Mr. Trump’s tax returns, the president’s acting chief of staff has already declared that Democrats will “never” get their hands on them.

Mr. Trump is leaning heavily on executive privilege, the principle that the president and other senior officials have the right to confidential deliberations within the executive branch. But scholars say executive privilege is a tradition, not a law. Neither the phrase nor the concept appears in the Constitution. Even so, since the establishment of the presidency, all of its occupants have at some point claimed the implied prerogative as fundamental to the separation of powers.

[…historical recounts using exec priv….]

While executive privilege is a common presidential tool, historians note that Mr. Trump’s usage is decidedly uncommon, if not unprecedented. Unlike his predecessors, who invoked privilege in specific cases, Mr. Trump has vowed that he will not cooperate with any congressional inquiry. He is effectively declaring lawmakers powerless over him. This, warn the experts, puts the nation in uncharted territory and threatens to erode its democratic foundations.

So where does Congress go from here? To the courts, in some instances. Already, suits and countersuits are being filed, setting up the judicial branch to define the parameters of the relationship between its legislative and executive counterparts.

Even if Democrats ultimately win many of these challenges, time is on the president’s side. Part of his team’s strategy is to bog down the process in litigation, denying the public clarity until after the 2020 election. To get the information they need, Democrats must prioritize their targets.

Other avenues of recourse being floated, some more seriously than others, include fining or even jailing officials who refuse subpoenas; withholding funding from agencies whose heads fail to cooperate; docking the pay of officials who try to prevent others from cooperating; and, if the situation becomes dire enough, impeaching the heads of obdurate agencies. House Democrats are moving to hold those who ignore subpoenas in contempt of Congress — a process that Speaker Nancy Pelosi presciently streamlined shortly after assuming control by giving the power to pursue legal action against noncompliant witnesses to a bipartisan panel of five members.

And so the process will grind on, as it must if Congress is to demand any sort of accountability from a president intent on undermining its authority.

Presidents clash with Congress, at times fiercely. The founders wanted it that way. But in declaring war on congressional oversight, Mr. Trump is not looking to maintain a balance of powers. He is looking to blow up the scales.

Rachel Maddow recalls an incident detailed in Volume II of the Mueller report between the president and Corey Lewandowski that shows how Trump’s actions check all the boxes for obstruction of justice, as anonymous sources close to Attorney General William Barr try to change the narrative about how he handled the report.

We got our first tv in 1952.
There was a show for kids where you got to draw on the screen –IF you had gotten the special screen —
we had not my brother and I drew on the screen anyway. Not popular that day

NYTimes:N.R.A. President to Step Down as New York Attorney General Investigates

INDIANAPOLIS — Oliver L. North announced on Saturday that he would not serve a second term as the National Rifle Association’s president, deciding to step down as the organization grappled with a bitter dispute over its future and its worst leadership crisis in decades.

He made the announcement as the N.R.A. faced a challenge from the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who had opened an investigation into the gun group’s tax-exempt status.

On Friday, Ms. James’s office sent letters instructing the N.R.A. and affiliated entities, including its charitable foundation, to preserve relevant financial records. Some of the N.R.A.’s related businesses also received subpoenas, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. A lawyer for the N.R.A. confirmed the investigation.

The move by Ms. James came amid a stunning internal power struggle that took a major turn on Saturday when Mr. North, in a letter that was read on his behalf at the N.R.A.’s convention, said he would not be renominated. He and insurgents in the N.R.A. this past week had been trying to oust Wayne LaPierre, the group’s longtime chief executive.

[…]

Their standoff began on Wednesday, when Mr. North urged Mr. LaPierre to resign. On Thursday, Mr. LaPierre sent a letter to the board in which he accused Mr. North of threatening to release damaging information about him and other executives if he refused to step down.

The shadow cast by Ms. James’s looming action had in some ways spurred the confrontation unfolding at the N.R.A.’s annual convention.

Even before her election last year, Ms. James had promised to investigate the organization’s tax status, and had told Ebony magazine that the N.R.A. held itself “out as a charitable organization” but was actually “a terrorist organization.”

[…]

And the attorney general’s inquiry is not the only threat the gun group faces in New York. The N.R.A. is already in a legal battle with the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over insurance it offers to gun owners.

Speaking at the convention on Saturday, Mr. LaPierre lashed out at Mr. Cuomo, saying he “hates the N.R.A. and he hates our freedom.” He also asked how Ms. James’s description of the N.R.A. as a “terrorist organization” made its members feel. The crowd answered with a cascade of boos.

Trump Toilet

Trump isn’t showing much respect to Congress these days. The president will not comply with any subpoenas from the House committees that are investigating him and the courts can’t do much about it because Trump’s term will be over by the time the courts come to any decisions. My cartoon shows Trump’s attitude about Congress.

It has already been decided over the centuries on this one. The ability of Congress to jail subpoena scofflaws in its personal jail is the concept of Inherent Contempt established by the Supremes in 1821. Here is a fascinating wiki on the subject. I would like seeing the Congress entering into an assistance agreement with the local police departments to apprehend Administration subpoena evaders. SFB would, of course, be exempt.

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